BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

10/12/2007

Dmitry Medvedev can continue Putin's course - Belarus, Ukraine MPs

MINSK/KYIV. Dec 10 (Interfax) - Dmitry Medvedev, if elected as Russian president, will continue the political and socioeconomic road and foreign policy of the current Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Belarusian parliament said.

"It is obvious that if Medvedev wins the elections, he will consistently continue the political course of Vladimir Putin," the head of the National Assembly of Belarus Nikolai Cherginets said.

Cherginets said Medvedev as Russian president "will be able to positively develop the processes of building the Union State of Belarus and Russia."

The deputy head of the Commission for Foreign Affairs and Links with CIS in the House of Representatives (lower chamber) Sergei Kostian said, "our relations with Russia will not change and will remain at the current level." Kostian does not agree with Cherginets that with the coming of Medvedev as president "the current course of Russia, Putin's course, will change neither to the left nor to the right."

Ukraine's Party of Regions has termed as democratic the processes concerned with the nomination by four parties of a single candidate for Russian president - First Deputy Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

"Current events in Russia are democratic," Verkhovna Rada Deputy Vadym Kolesnychenko said on Monday.

The Party of Regions has supported "all relations seeking better living standards within a state," Kolesnychenko said.

Kolesnychenko said he does not intend to make an assessment of the events in Russia, as it would be an interference in the internal affairs of Russia.

The Party of Regions faction is the largest faction in the Verkhovna Rada with 175 deputies of 450 total number. Its leader is the current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. The Party of Regions is not part of the parliamentary coalition.

Source:

http://www.interfax.com/3/344894/news.aspx